I have attached a draft of a schema I have been working on as an extension to METS for use in encoding our descriptive metadata in the context of METS:dmdSec.METS:mdWrap elements. While I know this will not be of universal interest, I would welcome comments and suggestions from anyone with sufficient time and interest to give this a read--particularly since I am still feeling my way with respect to the use of xml schemas. I have tried to set the schema up so that the main gdm elements could be use directly under a METS:mdWrap element, pretty much without restrictions, or encapsulated, with more control, within a GDM:gdm element. As currently set up, the GDM:gdm element can contain a GDM:core element, which groups a set of core, non-repeatable descriptive metadata elements. The GDM:core elements are currently governed by an <xsd:all>, which allows them to appear in any order, but not to repeat. The remaining, repeatable descriptive metadata elements are governed by an <xsd:choice minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded">, which allows them to repeat and to occur in any order. With respect to attributes: in switching from the MOA2.DTD descriptive metadata attributes to a XML Schema, I have tried to use more specific xsd datatypes. Thus the SEQ attribute that appears in many elements is now defined as an "xsd:integer"; and PUBLIC as "xsd:boolean". With respect to casing element and attribute names, I have tried to follow the METS conventions. Thus elements always begin with a lower case letters; but new "words" within the element name begin with an upper case letter. Attribute names are all upper case. I have also attached a very brief, example of a GDM encoding outside the context of METS. Rick Beaubien